Fear of pandemics or fear of tourism: The challenges for human mobility

Abstract

The spread of the novel coronavirus, 'SARS-Cov-2', causing the disease 'COVID-19' has resulted in almost one hundred million cases and two million deaths (World Health Organization 2020). While early research suggested that the virus was not as contagious as SARS and MERS, the rapid increase in human to human transmission showed that the virus was in fact more contagious (Chan et al. 2020; Huang et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2020). On January 23, China announced lockdown in Wuhan to limit people’s movement both within and outside Wuhan (Surveillances 2020). This was the starting point to travel and transport restrictions, which were progressively implemented worldwide, following the virus’ expansion (Hamzelou 2020). In the past few months, research has commenced as part of academics’ rapid response to analyse the impacts and anticipate the consequences of the pandemics for tourism and hospitality (see, for example, Gössling, Scott, and Hall 2020). This paper adds texture to this conversation and critically discusses pandemics’ implications for the hospitality and tourism industries concerning the transport sector.